Prepared by Stewart Reuben stewartreuben@aol.com and Roger Scowen patscowen@waitrose.com. Please respond to both of us. If you have not received this by email direct, it probably means that you are not yet on my database. Please provide the information.

To be eligible, you must be registered ENG with FIDE and at least gold members of the ECF.
There are two categories: born 1953 or earlier are 65+
born 1968 or earlier are 50+.
65+ may play in the 50+ event, if they so prefer

Most senior events are played at the rate of 40 moves in 90 minutes, followed by all the moves in 30 minutes, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from the first. If you have not played with an increment before, you should get in some practice.

13-23 April 2018 European Senior Team Championships, Walbrzych, Poland
Each game starts 1430 or 1500.
There are direct flights from Stansted, Ryanair in the early morning or late evening. There are alternative, more expensive flights from Heathrow, early morning departure with one change, but late evening arrival.
Cost €100 per player to the European Chess Union
€60 per player to the Organisers. This includes transfer from Wroslaw Airport 13.4 and return 23.4
€59 per day single + breakfast
€36 per day sharing + breakfast. Players have always arranged their sharing themselves.
4 March registration by the ECF and 13 March to the Organisers. This is contradicted by the regulations that state all payments must be made before 13 February.
Roger has researched the hotel and it seems satisfactory. The climate is similar to England in April.
If you are interested, please respond as soon as possible. Last year we were only able to field one 65+ team of 5 players. There were only 9 teams in the section, so that there was a bye each round. We avoided coming bottom.

7-15 July 2018 World Senior Team Championship, Radebeul (quite near Dresden). Radisson Blu Park Hotel.
Round 1 7th 2pm, rounds 2-9 9.30am.
penalty fee for late registration after 7 May and entry is not guaranteed until confirmed.
Fee for each player is €50, it becoming €100 after 7 May.
Each team must pay €100 to FIDE, so there is an additional fee of €25 per player.
single €62 per person per day bed and breakfast
double €42 per person per day bed and breakfast
Superior single €10 per day
Superior double €20 per day
studio double €30 per day
Cleaning is every three days. It is €5 extra per day for daily cleaning
Transfer is €30 airport to hotel. There is a bus shuttle available €40 for a minimum of 4 people.
The flight costs have not yet been investigated.
This event was highly successful last time it was held in Radebeul. About 100 teams played, many of them German and some rather weak. The hotel is good and Radebeul is quite close to Dresden, which is a major tourist centre. There are several restaurants in close proximity, but you can eat at the hotel. The weather was not too hot last time.
The ECF usually pays all the fees direct for both team events, the players having communicated their details and requirements to Andrew Walker at the ECF Office, andrew@englishchess.org.uk, 01424775222.
It is hoped there will be enough interest for us to field a separate women's team for the first time. quite likely that would be 50+. It is also hoped there will be a stronger 65+ first team than heretofor.
We have never had to turn away a player from either of these events. Generally speaking players 1700+ or 150 strength have not been outclassed.

27 July to 5 August British Chess Championships, Hull. Complete details can be found on the ECF website. Of course you do not need to play in the senior events (29 July - 4 August).

3-13 August European Senior Individual Championship, Drammen, Norway.
Note, there is an overlap with the British Championships.

5-9 November Royal Beacon Hotel 5 round senior events.

17-30 November World Senior Individual, Bled, Slovenia.
Bled is a delightful place. This is 11 rounds. But this event does overlap with the World Championship where Carlsen will be defending his title. That takes place in London 9-28 November.
Players usually make their own arrangements for these individual events. But the ECF will be willing to help, particularly with transfer of funds abroad.

The English Senior Championships did not take place in 2017. Two suggestions have been made regarding this event. To hold it at
(i) the unconfirmed Dave Rumens Celebration Chess Congress perhaps 8-15 August 2018 in the morning, probably in London, or
(ii) in the morning at Hastings, perhaps 1-5 January 2019.

One problem is that there may simply be too many senior events for the market. Your views would be very valuable. There are other senior events, not listed here, particularly in Germany.

Your early response, particularly regarding the European Senior Team Championship, would be very valuable.

If you are interested in supporting any of these projects financially, you can do so to Th:e Chess Trust. This charity is run by the ECF and gift aid may make a donation tax efficient. David Eustace, Finance Director of the ECF, can be contacted about this: david.eustace01@btinternet.com

The English Senior Championships did not take place in 2017. Two suggestions have been made regarding this event. To hold it at
(i) the unconfirmed Dave Rumens Celebration Chess Congress perhaps 8-15 August 2018 in the morning, probably in London, or
(ii) in the morning at Hastings, perhaps 1-5 January 2019.

If Hastings is in the frame for an English Seniors and that's not a bad idea, why not run it as a 7 or even 9 round event in the afternoon alongside the Masters? Or would that take too many entries away from the Masters and other Hastings tournaments?

In fact in general given the yearly expanding universe of players eligible to take part in these events, why cannot they be treated as serious tournaments? Namely 9 rounds in the afternoon using a FIDE move rate. In particular a morning event in Central London is unattractive in principle because of rush hour congestion and having to pay peak prices on public transport.

We had a FIDE-rated Seniors tournament in Dublin last week - seven rounds in five days, with 90/30 time limit, single and double round days alternating. This less strenuous schedule attracted 38 players and was much enjoyed by all. Something similar is planned for Easter.

As someone who is a regular at Hastings and has played in a handful of seniors events I think having the English Seniors at Hastings would work well because there is only a small overlap between the players I have come across at seniors' events and those who attend Hastings. (So it could give Hastings a boost). I would also support an afternoon event running alongside the Masters. Probably 75% of those playing in the afternoon graded sections at Hastings would qualify for an over 50 seniors' tournament and 25% for an over 65 one (pure guesses on my part). However, there is a good deal to play in the Masters if you are over 65 (£58 if you have a FIDE rating) and not many take that up so I would think the number of defections from those events would be small.

The idea of having the English Seniors at Hastings is Tim Wall's idea. We need to know whether many will play in Hastings at all at that time of year.
The English Seniors was designed as a 5 round, 1 game a day event. That, of course, is not written in stone. Personally I don't like events with some days one round and other day two.
The British seniors was always an afternoon event. When the numbers dropped way down, I changed it to morning. There was immediately a far bigger entry. Hastings has a masters in the afternoon. The morning events are ill-attended. Seniors can already play a major event in the afernoon. It makes sense to offer a major event in the morning.

But well-known senior, Anatoly Karpov, says that playing in the morning is "not correct"?

I suppose it could be run with 10 or 15 second increments, but if you use 30 second increments you can run into three problems
Needing an earlier start for the morning rounds
Needing a later start for the afternoon tournaments
Noise overlap between morning and afternoon tournaments.

It's worth bearing in mind that almost all accommodation in Hastings is at best several minutes away from the venue. It's not as if it's all in the same hotel.

When Karpov played in my events in London, he didn't even like starting at 1.15pm. It was arranged like that to get publicity in the following day's papers. Since the advent of computers, chess only gets mentioned two days later. So we usually startabout 2.30pm.

Tolya thught 4pm much better. Many Spanish events start at that time.
Gibraltar the morning events start at 10am. The rate of play is all in 110 minutes + a 10 second increment. The afetrnoon games start at 3pm.

I have often wondered whether the biorhythms of chess players mean that they prefer afternoon play. Or is it that this is what they become used to.

In Germany, senior chess events start at 9.30am. That is because that is what Germans are used to.